- John Morris Russell, Mario Bernardi, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, CBC Radio Orchestra, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, Jacques Lacombe, Judith Forst
- Eitan Cornfield, Raffi Armenian, Patrick Wedd, Mrs. Hetu, Jacques Hetu, Quebec Conservatory of Music Orchestra, Colette Boky, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Jacques Beaudry, Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, Joseph Rouleau, Robert Cram, Simon Streatfeild, Arthur Kaptainis, Mario Bernardi
- Andrew Dawes, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Murray Adaskin, John Avison, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, Eitan Cornfield, Eugene Kash, John Rudolph, Victor Feldbrill, George Zuckerman
- William Littler, Mary Morrison, Mario Bernardi, Esprit Orchestra, Eitan Cornfield, John Weinzweig, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Harry Freedman, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Brian Victor Macdonald, Nexus, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Alex Pauk
- John Rea, Gilles Manny, Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Alexander Brott, Victor Schultz, István Anhalt, John Beckwith, Mario Bernardi, Eitan Cornfield, John Weinzweig, CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Orchestre de Radio-Canada à Montréal, Gilles Tremblay, Serge Garant, Bruce Mather, Orchestre à cordes Radio-Canada, Jacques Beaudry, Montreal Tudor Singers, Nadia Papineau-Couture, Jean Papineau-Couture
- Mario Bernardi, Eitan Cornfield, Raffi Armenian, Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, Fordyce Pier, John Charles, Uri Mayer, Allan Gilliland, Allan Gordon Bell, Amanda Forsyth, James Thompson, Malcolm Forsyth, The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Brass, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra
- Mario Bernardi, Festival Singers of Toronto, Elmer Iseler, Canadian Brass, Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Douglas Haas
Mario Bernardi
Biography
Despite his Italian name, Mario Bernardi was a native-born Canadian and one of his country's leading conductors. His family sent him back to the Old Country to study music as a child, though, and this was through the entirety of World War II. He studied piano, organ, and composition at the Manzato Conservatory in Treviso (1938 - 1945) and the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice (1945). Young Bernardi returned to Canada after the war to complete his studies in piano and conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (1948 - 1951). He began his career as a church organist and concert pianist, working part-time as an opera coach and conductor at the Royal Conservatory's opera school. His debut as an opera conductor came in the 1956 - 1957 season with the Canadian Opera Company's Hänsel und Gretel. In 1959, he polished off his conducting studies with Erich Leinsdorf at the Salzburg Mozarteum and eased into a career as a full-time conductor, initially in opera. He joined the conducting staff of London's Sadler's Wells Opera in the 1963 - 1964 season and in 1966, became the company's music director. He didn't make his U.S. debut until 1967, with a San Francisco Opera production of La bohème. Bernardi left Sadler's Wells in 1969 to become the founding music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, where he honed the group into a highly proficient orchestra and ran a summer opera festival through it from 1971 until he left in 1982. It was in 1982 that he became principal conductor of the CBC Vancouver Orchestra and in 1984, he took on the Calgary Philharmonic, which he directed until 1994. During this period, he guest-conducted nearly every professional orchestra in Canada and many in the United States, and frequently appeared in the opera houses of Montreal, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, Santa Fe, and New York. Bernardi's departure from Calgary was not exactly a retirement; among other things, he led Canada's National Youth Orchestra on a coast-to-coast tour during the 1997 - 1998 season.